To give up or not?

8
1.5K followers

Hello Everyone!

I must say first that WA is an amazing community and I'm still very positive about that...but I've come to a dead end; I've stopped feeling like I'm progressing. Instead of feeling like I'm on the highway (or even slow-way) to somewhere, I feel like I'm going round and round in circles in the car park and haven't managed to start the journey (beyond starting the car and learning to drive in first gear lol).

I'm not complaining...more I'm trying to figure out what to do about it and sharing my thoughts here incase this situation resonates with any of you.

I've got a blog site. I haven't even monetised it yet. I was hoping to build up traffic and an email list and then improve and improve, and in the future, start to monetise it.

So I pursued my blog with passion but I couldn't and can't keep up with posting more than once or twice a week (they're usually long posts).

But...

My traffic isn't growing and my site isn't getting healthier... I just keep adding content that nobody reads...so I don't even know if it would be interesting or boring - I mean I can't test out my writing out because I don't get traffic so I don't get feedback. (Please don't answer that I should post for site feedback because that's different feedback. I'm talking about people who are looking for that particular topic and whether they find it engaging or not.)

I mean I have absolutely no way of gauging it and I'm beginning to feel the momentum slipping as I wonder whether I can 'get there' with this input or not. What is your opinion...is this the slow track to Google ranking or is it more a Google death-sentence of no progress, always-to-remain buried on page 4 if you post 1-2 weekly?

Sorry for the length of this post and thanks for any insights!

And if anyone fancies visiting my site to give me an honest opinion of whether they think it could have a future or is worth continuing with, the url is on my profile page.

I'm just not sure which way to turn right now....

Thank you! :-)




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Recent Comments

17

I am in a similar situation, with an average of 2 visitors per day. It's a little discouraging, but I try to tell myself that at the moment I am mainly writing for myself and if someone else likes it, great.

The thing that helped me a bit was posting to groups on Facebook. Prior to this week, I had only been in one group, but when I posted there, I got my highest visitor count of 28. Still low, but much better than 2. I just joined a bunch of new groups this week, so hopefully that will help, but I haven't posted to them yet.

I am also starting to explore LinkedIn, which will hopefully have some good results.

Traffic must be the absolute hardest thing, but on the plus side, with the sheer number of people online, there must be hundreds of thousands of people interested in your niche. Once you find a way to reach them, everything should pick up. All I can really say is keep trying and experiment with different ways to make yourself visible.

I went and looked at your website and I think it is very well done! I would try and gain more of a social media presence as I believe that would help you gain followers. I would proudly leave a comment for you as I do agree with what your site is about and you are doing a great job of putting it together! You could write some shorter posts if that helps but social media could work wonders in creating traffic for you!

Hi Keith, that really encourages me deeply; I'm going to try and implement your suggestions and get more of a social media presence as well as write some shorter posts. Thank you :-)

I thought if you are looking for feedback outside of WA, how you thought about putting you site out of FB, Linked etc. Address a particular type of person that might go to your site. Hope that helped. I did that and one person went on my site and told me she would recommend it to others. That is a start. I am a new person myself. Also keep asking questions like you are doing

Hiya! Yes I do post it to FB and it's true I have had the odd positive response, it all just seems so slow it feels like it's stopped moving altogether. (Maybe it hasn't though...) Thanks for your suggestion and good luck to you too!

You need to seriously relook at your niche and target market then move from there!

Hi Michael, When you say 'seriously relook at your niche' are you talking general or about my specific niche? I'm not quite sure how to implement your advice... can you explain what you mean? Sorry & thanks! :-)

Popularity of your niche and resonance with target market makes a difference to traffic!

I am four months in and feeling the same way, but I have decided that I am sticking in. I paid upfront for a year. At least I will know way more about websites than I did before. Good luck, and stay with it.

Hiya, Yes I'm staying in too! Good luck and thanks!

Congratulations you have found something that does not work. It is not about quitting or not quitting if this is what you want to do.

It is about finding what does work. That is all it is.

Something to think about why not monetize in the beginning. Isn't that like opening a coffee shop for people to come sit and read in and then saying, "I am not going to sell coffee until I build up my customer base and get some people on my mailing list."

Can you run a blog with only 1 or 2 post a week sure you can. May not grow as fast as a blog that is getting 5 post a week but it can work.

So my 2 cents is it is not about giving up it is finding out what works and doing it. Because you find out what works and do it then it works.

Anything I can do to help you feel free to contact me.

Hiya,
Yes I agree - it's not about quitting - but I may have to give up on my current path and change track...just don't know quite how yet.

Lol I love your coffee shop scenario example!! But my blog is just a blog - a brand - it isn't about affiliate marketing and doesn't have a product so it needs to build authority and credibility and traffic first I think..or maybe it will never be about money, just about getting a tribe. I did try to get google adwords but they turned me down. And I put a few affiliate links in but they just sit there.

Thank you for your words of encouragement, I appreciate it a lot. I'll try to find out what works...I hope. :-)

Hello Soraya, one of the first things I did was to share my website with family and friends on Facebook, Instagram, Google plus and asked for their feedback on the site and comments on my pages. The next group was Wealthy Affiliate members. Again I asked them to provide feedback on the site and comments on some of the pages. Those were my first groups of traffic on my site. Since then traffic has been growing slowly but still growing.
When I took a look at your site I liked the topic and was willing to learn more. What I found difficult was determine what other posts other than child development was on the site. My suggestion is to try and find a theme that allows snippets of all your topics appear on the first page. That would allow visitors the option of choosing what would be of interest.
I would not give up just yet. Not before trying some of the suggestions other members will offer.

Hello Harvey... I haven't actually learnt anything about Instagram yet but I do do facebook, pinterest and Google plus. Thank you for taking a look at my site. Thanks for that very good point about the snippets; I'll try and see if I can work it out!

Well sounds like you have reached the point that so many of us do and wonder why no progress right
We have all been there a few times but let me ask you what are you doing to get traffic are you just writing blogs and waiting or are you writing blogs and using the LINKEDIN, the FACEBOOK and all the other social media to help?

Well, I'm not the best at social media and not the worst...every time I publish a post I put it on facebook, google plus and pinterest. I don't do Linkedin or twitter - sorry but I (still) hate twitter. I get a few views and likes but it doesn't really grow. Google plus grows the fastest.
Thanks for your comments Paul! :-)

ok and thank you

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